


the heartlines in your hand

by annesbonny



Category: Avatar: The Last Airbender
Genre: 5 times sokka reaches for zuko and one time zuko reaches for him, 5+1 Things, Assassination Attempt(s), Episode: s03e14-15 The Boiling Rock, Hands, Holding Hands, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Sleep Paralysis, also there's like almost no dialogue in this i'msorry, listen there's just a lot of things going on with hands here, no beta we die like jet
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-03
Updated: 2021-02-03
Packaged: 2021-03-14 05:55:02
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,542
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29166030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/annesbonny/pseuds/annesbonny
Summary: Sokka reaches.And Zuko grabs hold.[OR five times Sokka reached for Zuko, and one time Zuko reached for him.]
Relationships: Sokka/Zuko (Avatar)
Comments: 44
Kudos: 379





	the heartlines in your hand

**Author's Note:**

  * For [haley625](https://archiveofourown.org/users/haley625/gifts), [bleekay](https://archiveofourown.org/users/bleekay/gifts).



> long story short, [Haley](https://fruitysokka.tumblr.com/) said a lot of things to me about Boiling Rock and Zukka reaching for each other on the gondola and I took that and ran with it. There's also this [art](https://bleekay.tumblr.com/post/636376672350945280) by bleekay which is just Immaculate and heavily inspired number 5.

1.

The first time he reaches for Zuko's hand, properly and consciously, is also the first time he's terrified of Zuko's demise. He hangs in the air for a moment that lasts forever. Two gold eyes that are desperate and afraid. Reaching out for him the same instant Sokka sticks his arm forward with nothing but hope. 

Sokka reaches, and Zuko falls, and it’s too _far_. Too far, too far, too far, too  _ much.  _

Zuko is still a mystery to him; swaying between curt words and raw emotion, and helpful advice. He doesn’t  _ know  _ how he feels about him. But in that moment, Sokka  _ knows  _ how he feels about Zuko dying, and it is not a bearable thought. 

Sokka  _ reaches.  _

And Zuko grabs hold. 

They are suspended for a moment, much like the cable car carrying them, before the weight hits. Sokka is tugged forward against the metal of the carriage by Zuko's weight. He's half hanging out the window himself and, somewhere behind him, someone gasps. But all Sokka can focus on in that moment is  _ ‘don’t let him fall.' _

Sokka  _ pulls.  _

Gritting his teeth as one hand grips tight to the bars of the cable car while the other maintains a vice around Zuko’s wrist as he swings forward and back before he finally gets a foot against the car to steady himself. He lets go of Sokka’s hand but Sokka doesn’t let go of him. Not until he’s got two steady hands on the sill of the cable car window, and Sokka can reach over and pull him in by the scruff of his shirt.

His voice comes out angry, because that’s the only way it won’t shake. “What are you  _ doing?” _

“I’m making it so they can’t stop us.” 

“Way to think ahead,” Sokka laughs. 

Preemptively. 

Because it’s not enough to keep them from attempting to stop their escape attempt, and Sokka finds this out as he’s sliding along the roof of the cable car as it sways precariously. Hands clawing at the metal, sword in one hand as he scrabbles for purchase with the other. Reaching for something, anything, to stop the fall to, oh, you know, the boiling soupy pit of water several hundred feet below him. 

And once again, Zuko grabs his hand.

* * *

2\. 

The party rolls into the night that first day after the war. After they are all finally safe and healing - Sokka isn't foolish enough to believe them fully healed, not just yet. Katara and Aang are spinning each other around, and his sister is laughing. The sound light and airy across the Fire Nation square. Even Sokka, who has never been overly fond of dancing, would have joined them if not for his leg. 

Also hovering around the edge of the crowd, looking almost too nervous to join, is Zuko. Sokka leans heavily into his crutch as he makes his way over. Startling Zuko from whatever reverie he’s fallen into as he announces himself. Loud and brash, the only way he knows how. 

“Not dancing, jerkbender? I thought you had those cool dance moves you loved showing off.” 

Zuko rolls his eyes, twisting his head to look at him.

“I’ve told you Sokka, it’s not  _ dancing  _ it’s an-”

“An ancient firebending form blah blah blah.” Sokka makes a chattering motion with his free hand, the one not wrapped around the crutch keeping him standing. Zuko, adorned in all his regalia and looking every part the Fire Lord, snorts with laughter. And he looks seventeen again. 

He looks like Sokka’s best friend. 

The thought sobers him, somehow. 

“Hey, uh, I’m really glad you made it, buddy.”

Zuko startles at this. His eyes are curious, lit by the golden glow of the bonfire before them. Sokka's breath catches. He lets go of his crutch, reaching across to Zuko's hand, who only realises almost a second too late that Sokka is reaching out for him. Looking down as his own hand darts out, wrapping round Sokka’s up to the elbow. The only thing keeping him upright. 

The action is the same as it had at boiling rock, but that feels like lifetimes ago now. It was barely a few weeks. 

Zuko’s smiles are softer now. Warmer, despite the weight he is carrying on his shoulders. Just seventeen with an entire country on his back, but lighter for being the person to bring them peace. 

Sokka thinks, privately, of the peace that Zuko brings him as well, in the quiet moments. He lets his hand linger, clasped around Zuko’s for a moment too long before he pulls back. When he looks up again, and meets Sokka’s gaze, Sokka is smiling too.

“I’m glad you made it, too.”

  
  


A year later, when they celebrate that first year of peace, Sokka reaches out again. And the camaraderie of two boys who fought a war together is still there, but in the soft brush of fingers under a sky lit by fireworks, something else blossoms too.

* * *

3.

Sokka doesn’t always mean to reach for Zuko. 

His ears are ringing. White noise surrounds the cacophony in his head. The calamity around him as guards pin down assailants and make arrests is drowned out by it all. Zuko’s lips move in the familiar shape of his name, but it doesn’t make its way through at first.

His side throbs, and Sokka presses his hands firmly against it. His fingers already feel sticky. Wet with blood that’s still flowing. His blood? It must be. It’s his blood on the dagger on the floor in front of him as well, just beyond the fallen hand of the assassin who Zuko had taken out both instantly and not soon enough.

Sokka’s vision is going fuzzy at the edges.

Zuko is saying something again, but it’s still muffled. His hands are on Sokka’s shoulders, on his arms, one brushing his face but Sokka can’t  _ feel  _ them. He shakes his head a little, trying to clear the water that must be in his ears - because _something_ is stopping him from hearing Zuko. Something… something happened?

What happened?

He removes his hand from his side, the reason for it being there seems unimportant. Secondary to the look on Zuko’s face as Sokka reaches out. Anguish and heartbreak and so much  _ fear.  _ His eyes wide and skin pale, only serving to throw more prominence to the new cut on Zuko’s other cheek. A thin gash that Sokka reaches towards, only to be stopped by Zuko grabbing his hand. 

Something inside Sokka trips and falls. 

Only when he is staring up at the ceiling - Zuko’s face swimming in and out of his vision, hand around his like a vice now - does Sokka realise he has fallen too. 

  
  


He blinks back to consciousness in a room filled with dim candlelight, flickering up and down as if to the steady beat of a heart, and a hand still wrapped tightly around his. Sokka winces as he moves, and the head of black hair, adorned with a crown, jerks sharply up. Whispered prayers to Agni die on Zuko’s lips as he looks over Sokka with a puffy, tear-stained face. 

“ _ Sokka?”  _ he breathes, and Sokka manages to smile before he’s yanked into a hug. 

Their intertwined hands are trapped between them. Pressed tightly in the little space Zuko has left as he buries his face in Sokka’s neck and lets out a shuddery breath there. 

“You okay there, buddy?” Sokka asks, and realises his voice sounds almost like Zuko’s from its raspiness. There’s a taste in his mouth that’s bitter and metallic. How long has he slept, he wonders.

“Never do that for me again.” 

“What, stop you getting stabbed?”

His memory of it is vague, from the moment of the stabbing, but everything before it remains in perfect clarity. The assassins, the adrenaline, the way Zuko started to turn a second too late to catch the dagger headed his way. 

The way Sokka had thrown himself in front of it, because what else was he  _ supposed  _ to do.

Clearly Zuko thinks there was something else. 

He pulls back, not releasing Sokka’s hand. 

“You almost  _ died,  _ Sokka,” his voice quivers, “If the Northern Tribe healers hadn’t been here-”

“But they  _ were  _ here, sunshine.” Zuko’s face remains fraught, unchanged, and Sokka raises the knuckles to his lips and presses a soft kiss to them. “I’m alright. We’re alright.” 

“I love you.” Zuko says, like it’s easy.

“I love you, too,” Sokka says, because it is.

* * *

4.

They don't happen often, the mornings where Sokka can't wake properly. Where his eyes won't open and his breathing goes sharp and staccato and all he can feel is  _ red  _ and all he can see is  _ red  _ and it's too much. He wants to move but he can't. His leg is on fire. His shoulder is ablaze. He is consumed by too much, too much,  _ too much.  _

He's reaching. 

It's the only thing he can do. His throat won't form words and his lips won't move. His brain won't make sense of the whispered words of a familiar voice as they go in and out of his head.

But he reaches. 

There's something unnatural about the numbing sleepiness that has its claws in him. Cloying and thick as it drags him under once again. A current pulling him beneath the waves.

He can hear Zuko's voice but he  _ can't.  _ All he can hear is the rushing in his ears. Waves. Screams. Airship propellers. Wind. The sickening crack of his leg as body meets metal.

He's asleep, but he's not. He's wide, wide awake and drifting. Untethered but for the hand in his. Keeping him earthbound. 

Zuko's hands have changed over the years. The distance between the first time he reached for Zuko's hand, across a boiling lake, and now is as insurmountable to Sokka as the barrier between sleeping and waking. 

And yet Zuko crosses these barriers with ease.

But his  _ hands _ . 

They have grown larger, and less spindly. Much like Zuko himself - not that Zuko was ever particularly  _ spindly _ to begin with. These large, warm, hands wrap themselves around Sokka's, and in his one point of hypersensitivity across the ocean of numbness, he can feel every callus. Every scar made by blade or flame or whetstone. 

"It's alright, Sokka." The voice is low and raspy in his ear, but far off too. "You're alright. You're safe, I promise. Just breathe."

He does.

He tries to.

The in-and-out of his breath is unsteady. As uneven in its rhythm as Sokka's pounding heart. 

The Wakefulness is coming again. Sokka can feel it advancing in the same way the ground advances, rushing up to meet aperson falling off a cliff. 

"Just breathe, darling."

A deep breath shatters free from his chest, as his eyes open at last. 

Zuko does not let go of his hand.

* * *

5.

It’s warm in their bed. 

Silk sheets pulled halfway down over hips, Sokka half out of them and entirely wrapped around Zuko. One leg over his bony hip and an arm slung around his waist, but it is the other arm he is concerned with. Zuko’s head rests on it, soft, black hair spilling loose from the braid that Sokka had tied it into for him before bed. 

Sokka can’t stop  _ staring  _ at his hand though. 

Sokka had reached for it, almost absentmindedly, as Zuko had curled back into him, half-asleep already in that moment, and Zuko had grabbed it. Zuko had slipped pale, gentle fingers between his, and held tight as he drifted off. And now Sokka can't look away. Fingers he knows and loves well pressed between his own. Both hands in the light, warm brush of Zuko's steady breath as he sleeps.

He knows the lines and valleys and curves of these hands well. Has pressed kisses to them, and held them, and begged for them and reached for them. They were the beginning of this, of all of this, Sokka knows.

Zuko shifts in his sleep.

His other hand sliding over Sokka’s other wrist where it lays at the curve of Zuko’s waist. 

Sokka sighs. 

With his hand intertwined with Zuko’s, it’s easy to think not of what is lost, but what is _found_. What he finds in Zuko every single day. In his laughter, and his smiles, and the crease that forms between his brow when he writes to his advisors that can only be worked out by Sokka’s own hands. 

Is this happiness? 

Peace at last, to have the man he loves in his arms, in his  _ hands.  _ F ree for once from threats and heartbreak and heartache and war. 

Sokka’s not sure, but he knows - watching Zuko’s fingers twitch in his, but not let go - that he’d gladly spend the rest of his life with this hand in his.

* * *

  
  


(+1)

“-and I’ll love you, from this day until my last day.”

Somewhere behind Sokka, Hakoda is sniffling. Bato probably is too, though Sokka’s stepfather would never admit to that. He’d blame it on the cold, as if he hasn’t spent his entire life in the South Pole. It’s Zuko who has the grounds to blame his sniffling on the cold, if anyone.

He should be out of place here, in the icy landscape of Sokka’s home, but he looks as at peace as Sokka has ever seen him. The same peacefulness that has come from nights by his side and soft, sunlit mornings. The warm smile on his face is for Sokka.  _ Just  _ for Sokka.

The words he says are for him too. Although, declared before everyone else, they are a pledge to do right by him. A pledge to be honored. 

And Zuko knows a thing or two about honor.

Sokka’s not sniffling. Definitely not. He doesn’t do things like that  _ ever.  _

Not even as Zuko reaches out, and pulls Sokka’s hand towards him. When he runs his thumb in a tender brush over Sokka’s knuckles, he realises Zuko’s crying. A tear slipping down his face and catching like crystal in the perpetual southern summer sun. He wants to reach out, but he’s frozen in place by the look Zuko is giving him. 

It is utter adoration.

“I’ll love you every morning, and every night, and every moment in between.” His fingers wrap between Sokka’s. Around them. The adoration is pressed into his words as well. The shake of his breath and the way he blinks to stop another tear falling and, oh _who's he kidding,_ maybe Sokka is welling up too. How can he help it, when Zuko is stood before him. Pledging himself with everything he has. “I’m so proud to call you mine. So honored to be called yours... My husband.”

_ Husband.  _

It has a pleasant ring to it. A ring that resounds through the betrothal beads in Zuko’s hair and the silver hairpiece in Sokka’s. The black and gold trim on Zuko’s blue coat, that used to be Sokka’s. The pieces of each other, tying them in the same way their hands hold them together. The way they each reach out with pieces of themselves in different ways every day. 

Zuko is his husband. 

Zuko is his. 

And as long as Zuko will have him, Sokka doesn’t plan on letting go.

**Author's Note:**

> also the Suki erasure was completely unintentional, please know they broke up amicably in the year after the war, and she's just kicking ass and loves both Zuko and Sokka very much. 
> 
> Also the sleep paralysis is vaguely based on my own sleep paralysis Stuff, but i did admittedly play it vague with the whole Stab situation

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [the heartlines in your hand [Podfic]](https://archiveofourown.org/works/29179752) by [Rionaa](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Rionaa/pseuds/Rionaa)




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